American

Literature
Prepared by:
John Paul Masillones
Lester Ferrer Abrantes
Roriely Antonio
Native American
(30,000 B.C. – 1730 A.D.)
 Historical Events
• 30,000 B.C. – 1492 A.D. – settlement of
American Indians into various tribes on
the American continents (Indians traveled
to this continent by crossing the Bering
Strait).
• 1492 – Columbus discovers America
landing in the Bahamas.
• 1521 – Cortez conquers Aztecs in Mexico.
Native American

 Characteristics of Native American

Culture:
• Ancestors arrived more than 10,000 years ago.
• Each of the 700 tribes spoke their own
language and had their own folklore and
mythology.
• Focus on the common origin of all things
• Tribal traditions and rituals
• Respect for all nature
Native American

 Types of Literature:
• Mostly oral
• Some written
• Ceremonial songs and prayers
• Historical narratives
• Poems
Native American

 Writers and their works:

• Walam Olum - usually translated as "Red
Record" or "Red Score," is purportedly a historical
narrative of the Lenape (Delaware) Native
American tribe.
• Navajo Origin Legend - is a creation myth that
can be compared to the story of Adam and Eve.
It shows how the first husband and wife are
created.
• Spring Song – a traditional Native American oral
poetry, as can be seen in this superb two-line
poem.
Puritans (1607-1702)

 Historical Events:
• 1620 – Pilgrims landed at Plymouth
Rock.
• 1629 – Puritans come to New
England.
• 1692 - The Salem Witch Trials take
place. Nineteen people are
killed.
Puritans

 Characteristics of Puritan Culture:

• The Puritans left England because they
wanted to purify the Church of England.
• They believed that the Bible was God’s
instruction to man and therefore a guide for
writing and establishing government.
• Puritans believed in predestination—the belief
that God has already determined who is
saved (the elect) and who is not (the
unregenerate).
Puritans

 Characteristics: (continuation)
• Puritans lived very simple lives.
• They believed that anything done for
entertainment, such as gambling,
excessive drinking, dancing, and singing,
was sinful.
• They highly valued art, literature, and
education.
Puritans

 Types of Literature:
• Sermons - is an oration or lecture by a preacher.
• Diaries - is a record with discrete entries arranged by date
reporting on what has happened over the course
of a day or other period.
• Journals - it refers to a daily record of activities.
• Narratives - a spoken or written account of connected
events.
• Poetry - is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and
rhythmic qualities of language.

***Fiction and drama were forbidden!!!

FICTION
Puritans

 Writers and their

works:
• Jonathan Edwards –
“Sinners in the Hands
of an Angry God”
(sermon)
• Anne Bradstreet
– “Upon the Burning of
Our House” (poem)
• Cotton Mather –
“Wonders of the
Invisible World” (book)
Colonial (1750-1800)
“The Age of Reason”/The Enlightenment”

 Historical Events:
• 1765 – Colonists resist new Stamp Act
passed by the British
• 1770 - The British kill colonists in the Boston
Massacre
• 1776 – Americans declare independence and
Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of
Independence
• 1775-1783 – Revolutionary War; Americans
defeat the British
• 1789 – George Washington becomes the first
president of the United States
Colonial (1750 – 1800) – “The Age of
Reason”/ “The Enlightenment”

 Characteristics of Colonial Culture:

• Also known as the Age of Reason or the
Enlightenment
• People believed that the universe was an
orderly place that could be understood by
using reason.
• Believed that reason could result in
advances in science, a better government,
and an ideal society.
Colonial (1750-1800) “The Age of
Reason” / “The Enlightenment”

 Types of Literature:
• Mostly political writings.
• Broadsides (posters that let people
know what was going on).
• Persuasive and argumentative writings
• Almanacs (Benjamin Franklin),
speeches, essays, pamphlets (essays),
and poetry.
Colonial (1750-1800) – “The Age of
Reason”/ “The Enlightenment”

 Writers and their

works:
• Benjamin Franklin –
“Poor Richard’s Almanac”.
• Patrick Henry - “Give Me
Liberty or Give Me Death”.
• Thomas Paine -
“Common Sense”.
• Phillis Wheatley – “On
Being Brought from Africa
to America” (poem).
• Thomas Jefferson –
Declaration of
Independence.
American Romanticism (1800-1840)

 Historical Events:
• 1803 – expansion of U.S. through the
Louisiana Purchase.
• 1812–1814 – War of 1812 against the
British.
• 1830 - Passage of the Indian Removal Act.
• 1848 - First Women’s rights convention in
Seneca Falls, NY.
• 1850 - The Fugitive Slave Act promises
punishment to anyone helping an
escaped slave.
American Romanticism

 Characteristics of Romanticism:
• Valued feeling and intuition over reason.
• Placed faith in inner experience and the power of
the imagination.
• Shunned the artificiality of civilization and sought
unspoiled nature.
• Preferred youthful innocence to educated
sophistication.
• Stood for individual freedom and the worth of the
individual.
• Saw nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual and
moral development.
American Romanticism

 Characteristics: (continuation)
• Looked to the wisdom of the past and
distrusted progress.
• Found beauty and truth in exotic locations,
the supernatural realm, and the inner
world of the imagination.
• Saw poetry as the highest form of
expression.
• Found inspiration in myth, legend, and
folklore.
American Romanticism

 Characteristics of the Romantic Hero:

• Is young or possesses youthful qualities.
• Is innocent and pure of purpose.
• Has a sense of honor based not on society’s
rules but on higher principles.
• Has a knowledge of people and life based on
deep, intuitive understanding, not on formal
learning (noble savage).
• Loves nature and avoids town life.
• Searches for higher truth in the natural world.
American Romanticism

 Types of Literature:
• Poetry - The Romantics believed poetry
to be the highest form of art; the ideal
form of expression.
• Novels
• Short stories
• Sketches
• Folklore
American Romantic Writers and
Their Works
• William Cullen Bryant –
“Thanatopsis”
• Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow – “The Tide
Rises, the Tide Falls”
• Washington Irving – “The
Devil and Tom Walker”
• The Fireside Poets – a
group of poets whose
poems Americans read in
the evening “by the
fireside”
• James Fenimore Cooper -
The Last of the Mohicans
Transcendentalism (1840 – 1860)

 Historical Events:
• Occurred during the same time
period as Romanticism and Dark
Romanticism.
• 1852 – The anti-slavery novel Uncle
Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher
Stowe is published.
Transcendentalism

 Characteristics:
• Arose in the New England area.
• There are kinds of knowledge that “transcend”
or “rise above” reason and experience.
• People should have faith in their “inner light”.
• Strong belief in the importance of the individual
and self-reliance.
• Looked to nature for inspiration and guidance.
• All people are connected by the “Oversoul” – a
spiritual force connecting nature and humans.
• Optimistic view of life.
Transcendentalism

 Types of Literature:
• Essays
• Novels
• Short stories
• Poetry
Transcendentalist Writers and
Their Works
• Henry David
Thoreau – Walden,
“Civil Disobedience”
• Ralph Waldo
Emerson –
“Nature,” “Self-
Reliance”
Dark Romanticism/Anti-
Transcendentalism (1840 – 1860)
 Historical Events:
• Occurred during the same
period as Romanticism and
Transcendentalism.
Dark Romanticism/Anti-
Transcendentalism
 Characteristics of Dark Romanticism:
• Shared some of the same beliefs as Romanticism.
• Pessimistic viewpoint - literature often
focuses on death and tragedy.
• Truth and happiness are not always found in life.
• Human nature is a mix of good and evil.
• Focus on the darker side of human nature.
• A belief in the supernatural with a focus on the
dark, evil side of the supernatural.
• Also known as “Anti-Transcendentalism”
Dark Romanticism/Anti-
Transcendentalism
 Types of Literature:
• Essays
• Novels
• Short stories
• Poetry
Dark Romantic Writers
and Their Works:
• Edgar Allan Poe –
“The Raven”, “The Pit
and the Pendulum”
• Nathaniel
Hawthorne – The
Scarlet Letter, “The
Minister's Black Veil”
• Herman Melville –
Moby Dick
Realism and Naturalism
(1855-1900)
 Historical Events:
• 1861-1865 – Civil War (not much was written
during this time because the war was too painful to
write about; much literature about the war came
many years AFTER the war was over).
• 1863 - The Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the
slaves, is issued by Abraham Lincoln.
• 1865 - The Thirteenth Amendment outlaws slavery.
• 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell invents the
telephone.
• 1881 - The Red Cross is organized by Clara Barton.
• 1898 - The Spanish-American War breaks out.
Characteristics of Realism

• Civil War literature was very political in nature.

• Expression of life as it is actually lived.
• Used clear, direct language to present ordinary
everyday events.
• Subjects of literature often consist of factories,
slums, workers, bosses, criminals, and social
outcasts.
• Regionalism, or local color, focuses on the unique
character of various regions and depicts their
dialect, customs, and characters.
• Sometimes contains humor and social commentary.
• Began because of the Civil War; the war opened the
population’s eyes to the realities of life and death.
Characteristics of Naturalism

• Extreme form of realism.

• Human beings have no control over their
fates.
• People were victims of their surroundings,
drives, and desires.
• Influence of scientific method. A writer
carefully gathers facts about human
experience and then draws conclusions.
• Nature is powerful and shows no mercy.
Types of literature:

• Short stories
• Novels
• Poetry (only a couple written during the
Civil War by a poet named Walt Whitman)
• Travel books
• Songs
• Spirituals
• Diaries and Journals (almost the only
literature written during the Civil War)
Writers and Their Works:
• Mark Twain (Realism) -
Adventures of Tom Sawyer,
Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn (considered first and
finest “American” novel), “The
Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County”
• Stephen Crane – The Red
Badge of Courage (one of the
most famous novels about the
Civil War; written many years
after the war)
• Jack London (Naturalism)
– Call of the Wild, “To Build a
Fire”
• Kate Chopin -The Awakening
Modernism (1900-Present)

 Historical Events:
• 1914-1918 - World War I
• 1929 – Stock Market Crash
• 1930-1940 – Great Depression
• 1941-1945 – U.S. involvement in World
War II.
• 1945 - America drops the atomic bomb
on Japanese cities.
• 1954 – Prayer in public schools becomes
illegal.
• 1961 - Alan Shepard is the first American
in space.
Modernism (1900-Present)

 Historical Events: (continuation)

• 1964 - The Beatles debut in America on the Ed
Sullivan Show.
• 1968 – Martin Luther King, civil rights leader, is
assassinated.
• 1973 – U.S. troops withdraw from Vietnam
• 1986 - Space shuttle Challenger explode on
take-off.
• 1989 - The Berlin Wall is torn down in Germany.
• 2001 - Terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon.
Characteristics of Modernism:

• Growth in America’s industrial power, military

strength, and influence in world affairs.
• Modernism lasted from around the beginning of the
20th century until the end of World War II.
• Writers rejected the literary rules of the 19th century
and opposed conventional morality, taste,
traditions, and economic values.
• Writers looked for new and varied modes of
expression.
• Stream of consciousness writing developed.
• Stories had no clear resolution at the end.
• Readers struggle to find meaning in texts because
life itself is a struggle.
Characteristics of Modernism
(continuation)
• The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was the first
significant artistic movement of African-Americans.
Harlem, NY was where many of these artists lived,
worked, and performed.
• In Postmodern writing, characters struggle to make
sense of the ever-changing world in which they live.
• Postmodern literature tends to have a pessimistic
tone.
• The “American Dream,” the hope for happiness
from a home, money, and good job, suffered a loss
during this time due to war and the Great
Depression.
Types of Literature:

• Short stories
• Poetry
• Dramas
• Novels
• Essays
• Songs
• Speeches
Writers and Their Works:

• F. Scott Fitzgerald –
The Great Gatsby
(great novel about the
American Dream)
• William Faulkner –
The Sound and the
Fury, “A Rose for Emily”
• Ernest Hemingway –
The Old Man and the
Sea
• Zora Neale Hurston -
A Raisin in the Sun
Writers and their Works
(continuation):
• Claude McKay - If
We Must Die
• Alice Walker – The
Color Purple
• T. S. Elliot – “The
Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock”
• Langston Hughes –
“The Negro Speaks of
Rivers,” “A Dream
Deferred”
Writers and Their Works
(continuation):
• John Steinbeck -
The Grapes of Wrath
• Sylvia Plath – The
Bell Jar
• Tennessee
Williams – Cat on a
Hot Tin Roof
• Arthur Miller – The
Crucible